The Nationals are giving Jared Simpson his first shot in the majors, and they’ve already made the roster math work.
Washington officially selected the left-hander’s contract along with Yohandy Morales, according to a club announcement. To clear the needed 40-man spot, catcher Drew Millas was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Millas has been out since July 12 with a left index finger fracture and surgery, and while he’ll be eligible to return in a little over a week, he still hasn’t started a rehab assignment, so his status beyond that remains up in the air.
Simpson, a 26-year-old lefty, was the Nationals’ eighth-round pick in 2023, taken 225th overall. He’s spent this season bouncing between Double-A and Triple-A and has covered 58 2/3 innings combined, putting up a 2.30 ERA along the way. The strikeout work has stood out - he’s punched out 28.9% of hitters - and he’s also been a heavy ground-ball arm, with a 57.5% ground-ball rate.
The drawback has been control. Simpson has walked 15% of the batters he’s faced this year, and he’s also hit two batters and thrown six wild pitches.
At 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds, Simpson has been used as both a starter and a reliever this season, though his “starts” have mostly come in opener-style assignments. Over the past couple of weeks, he made a pair of three-inning starts for Syracuse, and those were not only his longest outings of 2026 but the longest of his professional career. The Nationals view him primarily as a bullpen piece, and that’s the role he’ll step into in his first big-league look.
Simpson isn’t listed among Washington’s top prospects by Baseball America, MLB.com or FanGraphs, but he’s getting rewarded anyway as rosters expand from 26 to 28 players. He would have been eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this winter if it takes place, so the Nationals are moving now to add him and get a look before the season ends.
His stuff has been solid too. Simpson has averaged 94.6 mph on his four-seam fastball and 94.2 mph on his sinker in Triple-A this season. His main offspeed offering is a changeup that has averaged 85.4 mph, and he’s mixed in a slider at 83.3 mph roughly once every 10 pitches.
In Other News...
Nationals Win Put One Growing Standard Front And Center
A win can cover a lot of ground for a young club, but the Nationals still walked away with a reminder that standards matter as much as the scoreboard. Blake Butera has been reinforcing that message since taking over, and it showed up in a recent game when a mistake on a routine pop-up led to a quick benching. For a team trying to build habits as much as results, the point was hard to miss: effort and discipline are part of the expectation every night.
The backdrop made the lesson even clearer because Daylen Lile is starting to look more like the player Washington hoped he could be after working through a slump. His bat gave the lineup a real lift, and his recent progress has been one of the more encouraging signs for the Nationals. In that sense, the night offered both sides of the same coin for Buteras group, a glimpse of the upside when things are going well and a firm reminder that the margin for lapses is still thin. [Read more 🡒]
Yohandy Morales Just Gave Nationals Fans Another Young Bat To Watch
Yohandy Morales arrived in the majors and wasted little time giving Nationals fans a reason to keep watching. In his MLB debut, the young infielder announced himself with a home run for his first major league hit, joining a rare bit of club history in a 9-5 Washington win.
Morales became the eighth player in Nationals history to homer for his first career hit, and the second to do it this season, which only adds to the sense that the organization may have found another bat worth tracking closely. He also came up a triple shy of the cycle, leaving just enough unfinished business to make his next few starts feel a little more interesting. [Read more 🡒]
Nationals May Regret Letting Trevor Williams Get Another MLB Shot
Trevor Williams brief run in Washington ended with the Nationals designating the right-hander for assignment and releasing him after he cleared waivers, a move that initially closed the book on his stint in D.C. It was a tidy roster decision at the time, the kind that often fades quickly once a club shifts its focus to the bigger picture.
Instead, Williams found another opportunity with Texas, which brought him in on a major league deal as rosters expanded and immediately added him to the active roster. Before he left, he had given Washington quality work out of the bullpen, and that makes the turn of events linger a little longer for a Nationals team that may have preferred to keep that depth in-house. [Read more 🡒]